Our young, local Swiss priest preached to the First Communion kids today that the text "No God, No Church" was printed on the side of the Titanic and that's exactly where the iceberg hit. Is this true? I didn't find anything in the Internet about it. If this story isn't true, I'm going to give the priest a sermon myself.

I haven't read that myself, but what I have heard is the owner/the guy in charge of the Titanic is reported to have said "Not even God could sink that ship."

I'd not heard the 'No God no Church' claim, but FWIW, I had heard the 'No Pope' myth, debunked by Snopes here:

http://www.snopes.com/history/titanic/nopope.asp

Google says:

http://www.nmni.com/titanic/Myth-Mem...-sink-her.aspx

However did the iceberg not exactly hit the stern... so I'd call that story of your priest bullshit. He is probably too used to preach unfounded stories with funny details...

Pleeeese, do you really think the ship yard is going to paint such nonsense on an "Unsinkable" ship. The priest needs to be locked up, we have enough stupid rumours on Internet, without people lying in the church. Absolutely irresponsible!

Never heard that... and very unlikely as they had both anglican and catholic services on board.

Our local priest thinks you can feed five thousand people with a couple of fish and a bit of bread. I googled it and nobody else thinks its possible and I bought the same stuff from Coop on Friday and it only fed the missus and I til today.

My slightly tongue-in-cheek point being....almost everybody (outside of Alabama) - whether a believer or not (I'm not) thinks that the bible is allegorical and the stories where written to make a point, rather than being literally true. So if its ok for the gospel writers, why not the parish priest today?

I read somewhere the captain was an ardent atheist who claimed that "God could not sink the ship", and shouted "No God, No Pope".

I could see how such arrogance turns to blindness, even to the dangers of icebergs. So some can say the Titanic sank due to the captain's arrogance, rather than an act of God.... but some may say its one and same difference.

I once heard that the Titanic sunk because it was carrying the mummy of Tutankhamun. Curse of the pyramids and all that

The most plausible cause of the Titanic's sinking: Human Arrogance

Let's just say from personal experience...it is not the first story used by pastors/priests/preachers to get a message across that actually does not need a fake story to be valid. You can find it on the internet but you need to look for pages that provide/sell sermons and stories for lazy pastors that need a quick 3 point sermon to impress the audience and think that, somehow, it depends on them or impressive faith fake stories to challenge the believer and it does not depend on their faith or God. It is the reason believers find themselves in embarassing situations for believing without checking stories that bring tears but they were invented for the sake of "challenging" the people sitting in the pew.
So...my respect for not swallowing every that comes from a pulpit.

Are there any other stories told by the church whose historical accuracy is questionable?

Cheers,
Nick

I've never heard that one, but I am going to make my teenager wear a tee-shirt that reads "No God, No Church" tomorrow just to test it out.

Really foolish to propagate silly ideas.

Agreed. Valuable lessons can be misconstrued as superstition by the simple-minded who do not have the context for understanding what is being said. Loose allegories and similes are fine for illustrating a particular concept. But there may be some in the audience who can take a figure of speech too literally.

Snopes says 'no':

http://www.snopes.com/history/titanic/mummy.asp

Nice to see that religious MO hasn't changed over the years: leveraging fear into belief in the young and weak.

Sounds like a very strange subject for a first communion sermon, even if it is the Titanic anniversary. I would have thought something more along the lines of what attitudes/behaviours God expects of them at they become adults would have been more appropriate. And I'm not a believer. With priests making stupid remarks like that, you'll know why I'm not. I would certainly complain to the preacher if I were you, olygirl.

And i always thought "god" came before internet, thanks for that clarification

Well, I've invited the priest to become my friend on Facebook. It will allow me to contact him personally so we can discuss this issue. Thanks for all your help.